The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus such as a printer, and a maintenance system for maintenance of the information processing apparatus.
Recently, printers have become widespread, which include a sensor or the like for detecting a failure such as a toner shortage or a sheet jam and which are configured to notify a user of the failure using a display screen or the like.
The failure of the printer is solved by an operation of a user, a service person or the like. In many cases, the user is not familiar with operation contents to solve the failure, and therefore the user has to refer to a user's manual or the like. However, it is troublesome to perform the operation referring to the user's manual or the like.
For this reason, Japanese Application Publication No. 2007-264072 proposes a printer that previously stores a plurality of sets of guidance information corresponding to possible failures. The guidance information includes sentences or images representing operation contents to be performed by a user to solve the failure. The printer displays the guidance information corresponding to a detected failure on a display screen so that the user can easily perform an operation to solve the failure.
However, there are a lot of failures that are assumed to occur in an information processing apparatus such as a printer. Therefore, even when the failure is such that the user can solve it, there may be cases where the printer stores no guidance information corresponding to the failure.
In such cases, the user of the information processing apparatus may, for example, make contact with a maintenance center in charge of the information processing apparatus, and learn how to operate from an operator familiar with maintenance of the information processing apparatus. Alternatively, a service person may be dispatched from the maintenance center to a place where the information processing apparatus is installed, and may perform the operation to solve the failure. As a result, a burden on the user, the operator or the service person may increase.